Disc thoughts for 5.4 - Heroic PoV

[Deleted]

Hi all

This is my first post so a quick intro to myself, My Character is called Díscóó and I’m on Silvermoon – EU. Im in a 10 man guild and we have very recently killed 13/13 Hc, we killed Raden last night after 15 or so pulls, what a pussy! I’m around 535 ilvl, I was only 525 when we had a 2% wipe on Lei Shen. We had a 3-4 week break so were a little slow on getting Lei Shen and Raden.

Anyway I’m wondering what peoples thoughts are going to be on Disc in the next patch. As it stands we are the strongest healer in game and with a few nerfs coming up I don't doubt we will still be very very competitive. However I look at the game from a Heroic perspective so please no comments of “oh well I do 12/12 normal so.....” because of course on normal a Disc priest will annihilate any other healer who isn’t an absorb class, simply because if they are any good they wont let much damage get through those shields!

My regular healing team is a Shammy and a Druid both very skilled players, particularly mention to the Druid as when I’m not absorbing all the damage he does insane HPS, especially on fights like Magera! DEM SHROOMS!! He was also amazing for Raden for this reason! The Shaman always does well but his AE is just not as good as ours, he cant wait for those buffs!!! :-)

Now I haven’t been on the PTR and seen any of the new bosses so im really keen to hear from the priests out there about their experiences?? From what a good friend of mine tells me is that the bosses he’s seen so far the raid can be quite spread out. Not good news for our shammy but ok for me, Shields and Atonement are still BOSS! Im sure there will still be stacking bosses, there always are!

What I’m trying to say is that yes Disc are amazing but in constant heavy damage fights like Magera, Dark Animus (last phase), Primordius, Raden and the final phase of Lei Shen other classes do shine through. My alt is a monk healer and when there is damage to heal he is insane even at 505 his output for raw HPS is better than my Disc. Now I don't want this to come across as a moan from a Disc priest about not being top all the time, i really don't care about that, im top most of the time!!! Ha ha The point im trying to make is that in the next patch will there be more heavy AE fights that will see other classes shine or will Disc continue to be the best simply because of the amount they can absorb and snipe with Atonement.

Like I’ve mentioned I do tend to be at the top of the healing even with 10 ivl lower than the druid (the shammy is similar to me) However as we get to the big healing parts of the fight they both tend to catch up.

So to summarise
1. How have fellow Disc priests found the new content on PTR? (I know its subject to change)
2. Do you think we will drop down the pecking order with the nerf?
3. Will be see an increase in fights that make shields much less valuable and emphasise more value on RAW HPS like Magera.
4. Wild card Question – Do you find Disc boring??? I used to love it but with the way Disc have gone, atonement, cascade/DS, PWS, PoM, PoH with SS I find it very boring!!! I cant wait to play on my monk!!!! SO FUN!

Thanks for taking the time to read this

[CalamityPM]

You should almost always be topping as Disc in 10, 25 is another story all together.

[Deleted]

Well as ive said in the OP, i am normally always at the top aside from Magera where i shouldnt be top and also Tortos, again impossible for me to be at the top.

I dont see how your comment was relevent to anything ive written or asked but i thought i would respond anyway.

[Floopa]

Disc will remain the strongest healer in 5.4 if nothing else changes. Yes, it's boring to play Disc too.

[Whicker]

The nerfs so far will leave you pretty much completely unaffected in H 10m. Capping SS was never a prob and 10m disc usually runs less spirit then 25m so that hurts less too.

H25m on the other hand is a completely different story

[Venaliter]

After playing Proving Grounds on a premade in PvP gear, Disc's mana is now *much* more challenging. You pretty much have to sit in Inner Will to have enough to finish, for Gold and higher anyway. Of course, this would be considerably easier with LMG and up-to-date trinkets and such, but Proving Grounds is reasonably challenging. Perhaps even TOO challenging, though I haven't played my disc in 3 months and was still able to complete Gold after one wipe.

[Dracodraco]

After playing Proving Grounds on a premade in PvP gear, Disc's mana is now *much* more challenging. You pretty much have to sit in Inner Will to have enough to finish, for Gold and higher anyway. Of course, this would be considerably easier with LMG and up-to-date trinkets and such, but Proving Grounds is reasonably challenging. Perhaps even TOO challenging, though I haven't played my disc in 3 months and was still able to complete Gold after one wipe.

Errrh... Doesn't proving grounds scale you to 463 ilvl? Which means that "much more challenging" basicly means that disc is as weak as it always was in entry-level gear. We didn't start to get insanely powerfull untill we had the mana/spirit to spam our heals.
Actually, on the PTR proving grounds, if you're scaled to 463, then you should probably see your mana be better than live 463, due to the rapture change. Not worse.

[Ezekiah]

Also if it's anything like challenge modes, LMG will be disabled on a 463 scale and we'll just have the proc of the regular meta (ie 3% increased crit effect)

[thi13en]

SS duration downed to 10s (from 15s). Im curious how much of a nerf that would be in 25m?

[Venaliter]

Errrh... Doesn't proving grounds scale you to 463 ilvl?

It did scale me down, and set bonuses were removed. It should have been a small buff to mana regen. But mana was very tight in Gold and esp. Endless, even when not making obvious mistakes like overhealing, standing in stuff and missing dispels.

Keep in mind PvP gear lacks half the secondary stats of normal PvE gear (I think) and my add-ons aren't nearly as tweaked as I like.

It does get easier with repetition, too.

[Dracodraco]

SS duration downed to 10s (from 15s). Im curious how much of a nerf that would be in 25m?

As-is, Spirit shell isn't exactly "strong" in 25 man. It's mostly used to make sure your POH doesn't overheal - the whole "blocking a huge incomming blow with absorbs"-thing is just not realistic in a 25 man setting. Covering 5x groups gives them all a 70k or so shield each. It's something, but I'm not going to be crying myself to sleep over losing a third of that. SS is a much bigger deal in 10 man than 25.
Off the top of my head, the only fights where you can expect the raid to be reasonably stacked to get 5 people covered with each cast, and where you can block incomming damage, is Animus (for 2-3 groups only, if you keep locks on either side of the room to soak matter swaps), horridon, Lei Shen, and Ra Den. The only one of those fights where your pre-SS might save someone over just healing up, is Animus. The rest is pure "whoring", absorbing damage that would not actually kill anything, just for the sake of absorbing damage to pad the meters.

Take an example that goes for all raid CD's, not just disc:
Imagine P3 Lei Shen. You survive the winds, the thunderstruck, and the ball lightnings spawning. The entire raid might now sit at 30% hp.
The "normal" reaction for a healer at this point would be going HAM and spamming as much AOE healing as fast as possible, or popping raid CD's. However, in reality, that's "it" - for the next 10-15 seconds, nothing else will happen, untill the winds starts ticking again. If you blow a tranq or any other throughput cooldown AFTER the balls have actually spawned, you just effectively wasted the CD. Sure, it'll look great on the meters because you barely get any overheal, lots of stuff to heal up. But as the only dmg going out is on the tanks at that point, it wouldn't make any difference at all if you'd done it or not, and now the CD is unaviable.


It is however also important to note, that with the nerfs to holy paladins EF-spam on the raid no longer giving out a stacking shield on everything, disc will be "comparably" stronger - when there's less raidwide absorbtion going on, the raidwide absorbtion that still persist will seem much stronger in comparison to now.

It did scale me down, and set bonuses were removed. It should have been a buff to mana regen. But mana was very tight in Gold and Endless, even when not making obvious mistakes like overhealing, standing in stuff and missing dispels.

So... Basicly, it tells us absolutely nothing about how disc will do in raids next tier. It just tells us what we already know - that disc is probably one of, if not the weakest, healer in challenge-modes. Mana being very tight even without errors says more about the way disc scales with gear, or how hard the challenge is tuned, than it does about disc's performance in 5.4 <.<.

[Soulstrike]

we havent got any number changes (healing tools so far) yet so dunno tbh

if you are 13/13H i would expect you to know whats going on when there been changes in 5.4PTR like rapture nerf is a big one ss wont change much in 10 (25 is different story)

we will be fine when coming into 5.4 and double disc comp in 10man is plausible if you are pushing for top200

@your #4 question i find disc VERY boring DURING FARM but i find disc very challenging when it comes to progression though (trying to maximize your ss/AA)

[TirielWoW]

So... Basicly, it tells us absolutely nothing about how disc will do in raids next tier. It just tells us what we already know - that disc is probably one of, if not the weakest, healer in challenge-modes. Mana being very tight even without errors says more about the way disc scales with gear, or how hard the challenge is tuned, than it does about disc's performance in 5.4 <.<.

Actually, it's worse than Challenge Modes. When I've done Challenge Modes, I've never have to regem and enchant my gear just to stay solvent. At most, I had to swap out a trinket or two. In Proving Grounds, I had to swap back to older gear, gem pure Spirit, and change my enchants around just to break even. :-\

And there's RNG in there that just isn't really something you can overcome at that gear level.

[Deleted]

I am fully aware of the rapture and SS changes but i dont care for them, As someone mentioned earlier i dont have any problems capping SS and in regards to rapture....who cares....i actually PWS spam just to keep my mana not at full and this was when i was 10-15 ilvl behind the Druid and Shaman i heal with. Disc needed the nerf! but with the Regen tools that Disc have we still wont have any mana problems, i mean Shadow Fiend, Solace and Hym when timed with MTT/Shadow fiend is insane.

So all the changes mean is that i wont be able to spam PWS so much.

[Venaliter]

I am fully aware of the rapture and ....who cares.... Disc needed the nerf! with the Regen tools that Disc have we still wont have any mana problems

Tried PvP lately? No? Disc has one of the weakest mana pools of the healers. And, it's WORSE now. But that's a different story.

[Soulstrike]

So all the changes mean is that i wont be able to spam PWS so much.

??? whats stopping you from PWS spamming in 5.4?? i mean didnt you say you dont care about the rapture change??

also druid and shaman are in pretty bad shape atm (resto druid looks pretty decent in 5.4 though)

[Vilbu]

Nerfs or not the absorbs, disc's damage and utility in 10's in general is rather superior compared to other healers. But I wouldn't lock any choices yet. Not like it would be the first time somebody changes the spec back and forth a few times during progress.

[Deleted]

I dont think 10 man disc priests will see any particular difference, unless if for some really odd reason that were running with over 9-10 k spirit.

In 25s there will be a nerf - but I dont think it's gonna be a big deal. I personally hate the long ramp up time on spirit shell anyway, was fun for a couple of weeks at the start of mop but got old.

[Deleted]

Yeah it'll be a nurf come 25's but at the end of the day its changed so much since MoP launch and doomsayers flood to the forums going wild about it yet each tier shows we're still solid, it'll be fine (we hope ).

And furthermore to what Draco said, the paladin change will be significant enough I reckon.

[TirielWoW]

??? whats stopping you from PWS spamming in 5.4?? i mean didnt you say you dont care about the rapture change??

also druid and shaman are in pretty bad shape atm (resto druid looks pretty decent in 5.4 though)

Shaman is going to be ridiculously OP for the three stack fights in the tier.

Then sat for the other 11 fights. :-\